Papua New Guinea

Entry Requirements

All foreign nationals who wish to enter Papua New Guinea are required to obtain a visa either in advance or on arrival.

A visa valid for 60 days, also known as 'Easy Visitor Permit' can be obtained on arrival in PNG by some passport holders; fees for Tourist Visitor are zero for many countries. An 'Easy Visitor Permit' can NOT be obtained on arrival if the applicant is using a passport from one of the following countries: Australia, all African countries including North Africa, all Middle Eastern countries, all Central American and Caribbean countries except Mexico, all Central Asian countries, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, China not including Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan, Cyprus, Georgia, India, Montenegro, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam see here for the full list of countries.

Alternatively, a visa also known as an 'entry permit' can be obtained in advance at a PNG embassy, high commission or consulate. The application fee per person is 75 kina tourist/visitor, 200 kina yachtsperson, 500 kina businessperson/journalist or 50 kina sportsperson. The application form is available at (http://www.immigration.go...).

As of August 2014, 60 day tourist visas are issued by the PNG consulate in Jayapura free of charge. Processing time is five business days.

If you live in a country that does not have a Papua New Guinean embassy or consulate, you may be able to apply for a PNG visa in advance at an Australian or British embassy, high commission or consulate. For example, the Australian Embassy in Copenhagen (http://www.denmark.embass...) accepts applications for PNG visas from residents of Denmark, Iceland and Norway; the Australian Embassies in Budapest (http://www.hungary.embass...) and Warsaw (http://www.poland.embassy...) also issue PNG visas. The British Embassy in Minsk (http://www.ukba.homeoffic...) and Riyadh and the British Consulates in Al Khobar and Jeddah (http://www.ukba.homeoffic...) accept applications for PNG visas this list is not exhaustive. British diplomatic posts charge £50 to process a PNG visa application and an extra £70 if the PNG Department of Immigration and Citizenship requires the visa application to be referred to them. The PNG Department of Immigration and Citizenship can also decide to charge an additional fee if they correspond with you directly.

More information about the PNG visas is available at the website of the PNG Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

By road

By road

The only land border is with Papua Irian Jaya, Indonesia, and crossing it involves some preparations but is not that difficult as it might have been. In Jayapura, Indonesia, there is a consulate to apply for a tourist visa. The consulate is located in Mendi, a 10min green bus ride away from Jayapura's capital. As of August 2014 the tourist visas are free of charge. There's a currency exchange office nearby with good rates to buy kina.

Depending on your Indonesian visa there are different options to cross the border. If you have a visa on arrival, issued to you for example at the Jakarta Airport, you can only cross the border using a boat or by stamping out at customs in Jayapura and then immediately traveling to the border 30km away. Western travelers attempting the latter should expect to pay some miscellaneous fees and jump moderate bureaucratic hoops before leaving.

Boats can be rented from Hamedi.

Any other type of visa you can rent a car, or an ojek and cross the land border. If renting a vehicle for the crossing one should expect to pay approximately 300,000 rupiah from Jayapura town and travellers should expect to pay upwards of 500,000 rupiah to return from the border to Jayapura. Shared taxis to the border leave early in the morning from Pasar Youtefa, among other places. Alternatively, from the same place, you can catch a bemo to the village Koya Timur half way to the border, 9000 rp, frequent departures from where you can hire an ojek to the border for 70000 rp or try to hitchhike.

From the border to Vanimo a bus charges 10 kina. A few days a week there is a market at Batas, immediately on the Indonesian side of the border, that attracts many shoppers from PNG. IThe roads are busy on those days.

In April 2014, following a shooting, the land border was closed for any traffic. As of late July 2014 it seems to be back to normal. Travel by sea in banana boats is always an option, although more expensive.

By plane

By plane

Jackson International Airport in Port Moresby is the nation's international airport.

Pacific Blue

QANTASLINK

By ship

The ports include Madang, Lae, and Port Moresby on the mainland, Kieta on Bougainville, and Rabaul and Kimbe on New Britain. However, they are only internal ferries. International ferries are unavailable.

Few travellers travel between Buin in Bougainville and Shortland Island in the Solomon Islands by a banana boat. There are flights between Shortland Island and Gizo or Chiusel in the Solomon Islands alternatively banana boats on very rough seas. This route has been described on a few blogs and older editions of the Lonely Planet.

Content tagged with wikitravel is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license. A list of contributors is available at the original article on Wikitravel.